Despite the availability of specific antibiotic treatment bacterial meningitis causes significant neurological sequelae in approximately one third of the long-term survivors. The aim of this investigator is to study the CNS-associated injury that results from bacterial inflammation of the meninges. An animal model, in which infant rats are inoculated intranasally with type b Hemophilus influenzae, has been developed by the applicant and will form the experimental basis for these studies. Using the combined disciplines of microbiology, histology, neurochemistry and morphology, the effect of bacterial meningitis on developing mammalian CNS will be characterized in order to research the mechanisms leading to cerebral dysfunction and, thereby, to derive therapeutic regimes capable of preventing these sequelae.